ESA, IIPA slam Canada for not fixing copyright “deficiencies”

The ESA and IIPA criticize Canada's lack of copyright protection for games in …

This week, the International Intellectual Property Alliance submitted its 2008 "Special 301" report to the US Trade Representative, laying out the lack of support for copyright enforcement in many countries while simultaneously explaining how content piracy is hurting the US economy. The video game and entertainment software market is being hit hard by piracy in many parts of the world, the report claims. While the inclusion of China and Russia on the "Priority Watch List" isn't surprising, the report also has strong words for a more surprising: Canada.

"Canada has taken no meaningful steps toward modernizing its copyright law to meet the global minimum standards of the WIPO Internet Treaties, which it signed more than a decade ago," the IIPA claims. "In 2007, the parliamentary leadership and the government, at the highest levels, acknowledged many of these deficiencies, and the government listed copyright reform among its top legislative priorities. But these encouraging statements have not yet evolved into anything more concrete."

The ESA likewise doesn't seem to have much respect for Canada when it comes to piracy. "Pirated copies of games and circumvention devices have permeated retail markets in Canada, due to legal deficiencies and that [sic] IPR enforcement remains a low priority for public officials," its own release claims.

Canada doesn't have much respect for this "301" process, since the groups that submit the reports (including the IIPA) are private organizations. Michael Geist, a Canadian law professor, points out that Canadian leaders consider these 301 reports to be more a form of lobbying than anything resembling reasonable analysis.

Last year may have been huge for game sales, but piracy may have limited even further growth. "In 2007, our industry had a record-breaking year with receipts totaling $18.85 billion, but piracy closes off promising markets, artificially limiting our industry’s ability to contribute even more economic growth to the American high-tech economy and economies of our trading partners," ESA President Michael D. Gallagher said.

Of course, just because a game is pirated doesn't always mean a sale has been lost. When pirated games are produced en masse in China and Russia, then moved through Paraguay into markets like Brazil—where the ESA admits high tariffs make the sales of legitimate games almost non-existent—the issue becomes even thornier, and the local governments may not have high levels of sympathy for the US economy. This could be why we're seeing a focus on Canada in these reports; our northern neighbor has a thriving game development community but suffers from easy availability of pirated games on the retail level.

How widespread are pirated games in Canada? Ars Technica staffer Frank Caron shares his own experiences on how easy it is to find pirated games. "It's not a matter of pirate stores; there are entire malls. One example would be Pacific Mall, famous for selling imported and pirated materials," he says. "One store, in particular, gives you a binder full of titles, and you just give them the numbers, and they burn you copies instantly. Another store gives you five free burnt games with the purchase and installation of a mod chip." It's common for such operations to be shut down, only to reappear in a new location days later. (We should note that this sort of thing is already illegal in Canada and that passing the WIPO treaties into law isn't necessary in any way to crack down on such commercial piracy.)

Canada may be the fight of choice for the ESA and the IIPA: the country has what they believe to be a notable piracy problem, the means to fix it, and an economic reason to do so. While a chart from IDC data may show that Canada has a much lower rate of piracy than other trouble countries listed in the 301 report, it is one of the few places with a realistic hope for serious change. If you can't win every battle, it may be worth focusing on the areas where you can at least fight the good fight.